To be able to say that both my Dad and I have been selected to represent England in the World Championships is a dream come true. Back in November, an advert appeared in the Angling Times asking for any lure anglers that would be interested in representing their country in the first ever Team England Lure Squad, to enter the 6th Carnivorous Artificial Bait Boat Angling World Championships, to register their interest. It's always been an ambition of mine to fish in a large competition such as the Bassmasters and the FLW tour in the United States, and I really enjoyed being in the England Youth Flyfishing Team, so within hours I'd sent my details off. Seven months later, two letters came through the post, informing us that we'd both made it in to the England squad! As you can imagine, we were over the moon!
The team consists of Eric Edwards, Gary Palmer, Matt Netherton, Evaldas Skablauskas, my Dad and myself, along with the team manager, Mike Skipper. I'm very proud to be part of a team with such a great spirit and determination to bring back Gold. As newbies to the World Championships, England remain very much the underdogs, but preparations have been well underway for a long time now, and with the event just 7 weeks away, we're working very hard to ensure we can all do our best on Lough Erne this October. We're up against some very experienced teams but I'm sure we can give them a run for their money. I'm also really hoping that now England are in the World Championships it will help promote lure fishing here in the UK, and for it to grow further to the level it has in many other countries.
In the meantime, the squad are looking for sponsorship, and if there are any companies that are interested in promoting themselves globally in this world championship, helping the team and being in it from the very beginning, should contact Mike Skipper, Team Manager at teamenglandluresquad@gmail.com.
The last couple of months have involved practicing and preparing for the forthcoming World Championships. But although the spell of hot weather we've had for a while has been great for barbecues and ice creams, it hasn't been so great for targeting predatory species. Early morning and evening trips along our local rivers have been productive, with plenty of small Perch and Pike, but the bigger fish haven't been showing themselves. One species that the conditions have been suitable for are Chub, and we've caught some good fish from a few rivers recently on jigs and crankbaits.
Weirpools are great places to try, especially when it's been so hot, as they are usually well oxygenated. My Dad and I have had a couple of trips on the Thames recently fishing some of the many weirpools. On our first 'overnighter' this season on our small boat (starting at 3pm on a Wednesday and fishing until 11am on Thursday morning) we hardly got any sleep, but we had plenty of action boating 21 Pike to just over double figures, as well as plenty of Perch on a variety of lures.
The weirs are great for trying and testing different lures and tactics - some of the most effective were Texas-rigged Berkley Havoc Rocket Craws, Pit Chunks, Heavy Weight Thump Worms and the Sébile Magic Swimmer Soft, as well as a variety of spinnerbaits and crankbaits.
On another overnight trip to the Thames this month the fishing was much harder because of sky-high water temperatures, so we spent much of our time targeting Chub. We started earlier in the day and fished the same areas as last time, but only landed 2 small jacks and a Perch, so we relocated to another weirpool with about an hour of light to spare, where we'd planned to spend the night targeting Zander. Within minutes of arriving Dad hooked in to a good fish, which turned out to be an immaculate Chub of 5lb 8oz on a small crankbait.
It was soon dark and time to change tactics for targeting Zeds - I switched to a drop-shot, fishing vertically below the boat, whilst Dad fished an array of Spinnerbaits, Swimbaits and Crankbaits. At around 11.30pm Dad had an almighty take and he hooked in to a good fish. We assumed it was a big Zander or a Pike, and after netting the fish I turned on my headtorch and had a look, as we still didn't know at this stage what it was. We both got a shock as the fish was actually a huge Chub!! It weighed 6lb 12oz and took a 7.5" white Sébile Koolie Minnow, which is a mouthful for a Chub!
Dad then decided to switch rods and went back to a small jig, hoping for more Chub, and at around midnight he caught another of 5lb 12oz - this time on a Texas-rigged twintail.
By 1am we were both feeling quite tired, so after mooring up the boat, we tried to get some sleep. Waking up just before dawn, it was straight back to fishing and we returned to the area where we'd caught the Chub. Casting a Sébile Crankster right in to the whitewater, I had my first Chub of the trip, weighing 5lb 2oz, and then another of around 3lb 4oz.
After landing a few more Pike and Perch, it was time to head for home as the tiredness had caught up with us.
A few days later, after some heavy rain, we had a trip to Pitsford. Although we didn't catch any big fish, we did have lots of action, catching (and losing!) quite a few small Pike, plus a very greedy Perch which was no longer than 7 inches and took a lure the same size as itself! It was a great opportunity to try out a few new lures, which all seemed to produce fish.
A week or so later, we were back on another reservoir - Grafham. This time we were armed with our 9wt fly rods and Zander flies. It took a while before we caught our first Zed, and remained quite slow for the rest of the day, until we stumbled across a couple of areas where we were able to catch a few more, and ended up with 8 in total, the biggest around 7lbs.
The time is flying by and there's still lots of preparation to be done ready for going to Ireland in October. There is also the exciting prospect of many reservoirs opening up for lure fishing, although I'm not quite sure how they're going to fish as the warm weather seems set to continue - we'll just have to see!
